"At our shelter, we're taking in right around 13,000 a year," said Debra Boswell, of the Mississippi Animal Rescue League.

On one day at MARL, there was Frisky, a dog who was returned to the shelter for living up to his name.

There was one stray dog after another.

Thirty-two animals came in in two hours, which was a typical day at the shelter, Boswell said.

She said MARL finds homes for nearly 2,000 animals a year, but 11,000 or more are euthanized annually, which is something that takes a toll on the shelter's workers.

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"What do you say to those people that wonder if euthanasia is really rescuing the animal?" Kelly asked.

"Come and spend time with us. See what our staff does. See the animals that come in here. See the conditions that some of them are in. And then tell me, would they have been better off just where they were?" Boswell responded.

Lydia Sattler, of the Humane Society of the U.S., said a lot of people want to blame the shelters for euthanizing the animals, when it's really a community problem.

"You're spinning your wheels. We can't get anywhere without fixing the root cause of the problem," Sattler said.

To fix the exploding population problem, shelters said owners need to spay or neuter their pets.

"Someone has decided that they want to keep their dog, but they don't want puppies. So, continually, they'll have another litter, so those continually will multiply," said Denise Cantrell, of Community Animal Rescue & Adoptions.

CARA said it takes in one or two animals a day and adopts out 20 a month. The rest will not be euthanized, but new animals may have to be turned away.

Percy is one of 300 dogs at CARA. That's about 50 more dogs than they like to have at the shelter at any given time.

It's the same dog tale at the Animal Rescue Fund, where they're at their limit of 300 animals.

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"I can't rescue all of them, but I can rescue as many as I can," said Elizabeth Jackson, of ARF. "We're getting about 40 calls a day from people wanting us to take in an animal that they've rescued or their animal that they're wanting to surrender."

Jackson admits animals that can't fit into her shelter sometimes end up back on the streets, or at MARL, at risk of being put down. She said the state needs to mandate that owners fix their pets.

"Up in New England, they have mandatory spay-neuter laws. If you have a pet, you get a license for your pet, and it's $15 if your pet is spayed or neutered. It's $300 if it's not. Guess what? All their shelters are empty," Jackson said.

The Jackson area shelters all have active Facebook pages where they post pictures in hopes someone will be able to help the animals. It is there that they share success stories of pets who find "furever homes."

"It would be a great day, and we're years from it, that we had a waiting list for these animals when they came in the door," Boswell said.

Shelter workers said without the help of the community, Mississippi will continue to struggle to get out from under a problem of too many pets.